All Dharmas Are Without Self (2)

All dharmas are without self, including the selflessness of persons and the selflessness of dharmas. The selfless nature of the eighth consciousness is one aspect of the dharma-selflessness realized in the Mahāyāna. The selflessness of persons is what the Āgama sūtras teach: the five aggregates and eighteen realms realized by arhats as not-self. Viewed from the perspective of the five aggregates: the aggregate of form arises from nonexistence, arising and ceasing, impermanent — it is not self; the aggregate of feeling flows and shifts from thought to thought, ever changing — it is not self; the aggregate of perception arises and ceases impermanently, flowing and shifting from moment to moment, ever changing — it is not self; the aggregate of volitional formations undergoes arising, abiding, alteration, and cessation, unable to endure long — it is not self; the aggregate of consciousness arises and ceases, changes moment by moment, arising then ceasing, ceasing then arising — it is not self. The five aggregates are produced from causes and conditions and are not self.

Viewed from the perspective of the eighteen realms: the first five faculties arise from nonexistence and pass from existence to cessation; they cannot be grasped and are not self. The sixth faculty, the manas, is a flowing forth of consciousness-seeds, arising and ceasing moment by moment, and it too can be extinguished when an arhat enters nirvāṇa — it is not self. The six consciousnesses are just the aggregate of consciousness, arising, ceasing, and changing — not self. The six sense objects — form, sound, scent, taste, tangibility, and mental objects — arise from nonexistence and pass from existence to nonexistence, arising and perishing according to conditions, ever changing — not self. The dharmas of the eighteen realms arise and perish through conditions, are impermanent and subject to change, and are not self.

This is the selflessness of persons with respect to the five aggregates and eighteen realms in general. The selflessness of dharmas in the Small Vehicle means that among all the dharmas produced through the successive combination of the five aggregates, six sense bases, twelve entrances, and eighteen realms, there is no self. For example, the eye seeing forms, the ear hearing sounds, the six faculties contacting the six sense objects, walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, dressing and eating, speaking and laughing, doing good and doing evil, inwardly deliberating, comprehending, analyzing, investigating, and so on — the activities of these seven consciousness-minds — all these dharmas are not real; they arise and perish through conditions, are impermanent and changing, cannot endure long, and none of these dharmas has any self-nature — that is, none of them is self.

The selflessness of persons and selflessness of dharmas realized by Mahāyāna bodhisattvas is the contemplation, from the perspective of the tathāgatagarbha, of the illusory and unreal nature of the "self" of persons in the five aggregates and eighteen realms, contemplating that all the dharmas derived from the combination of the aggregates, entrances, and realms are all functions of the tathāgatagarbha and have no substantial entity. Beyond including the selflessness of persons and selflessness of dharmas of the Small Vehicle described above, it also includes realizing the selfless nature of the eighth consciousness, and also includes the emptiness of the grasping subject of the seven consciousness-minds and the emptiness of the six sense objects that are grasped — that is, both the grasping subject and the grasped object are empty. As for the part concerning the emptiness and selflessness of persons in the five aggregates and eighteen realms, it is because the eighth consciousness gives forth the seeds of the five aggregates and the seeds of the eighteen realms that all the activities of the five aggregates and eighteen realms can be sustained.